Make a killing from the horror of Halloween

Ghosts, ghouls and annoying children will be knocking on doors tonight and asking whether we would like a trick or treat. Love it or hate it, Halloween has become a celebration of horror, drawing inspiration from a vast range of books, films and other art.

This horror genre has proved lucrative territory for collectors such as Mike Bloomfield, who believes posters offer the best way to make money out of Halloween.

‘Horror posters from the very earliest films are the most valuable as they defined themodern genre – they have become historic artefacts,’ says Bloomfield, 50, who runs a business called MEM, which is dedicated to cinema and music memorabilia and which includes the website moviepostermem.com.

Haunting image: Mike Bloomfield with a poster of The Hound Of The Baskervilles

‘Because the posters would be thrown out once the film run had
finished, survivors are extremely rare and can fetch a fortune, says
Bloomfield, of Newbury, Berkshire.

The most valuable poster promotes the early Boris Karloff movie, The
Mummy. An original 1932 one sold for £286,000 at Sotheby’s in New York
in 1997. It could be worth twice as much today.

Dracula has long been a favourite with filmmakers and the first
talkie version, set in London and starring Bela Lugosi, was promoted
with posters showing him clutching a woman by the neck and preparing to
bite.

One sold for £196,000 in California in 2009. Posters for the first Frankenstein, another
Karloff film, can change hands for more than £120,000.

Bloomfield says: ‘Horror posters have at least doubled in value over
the past decade. Maybe their appeal endures because in our boring, safe
lives we hanker for thrills.’
He points to Gothic Hammer Horror films of the Fifties to Seventies as particularly collectable – and still affordable.

His favourite is a poster for 1959’s The Hound Of The Baskervilles,
starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. It cost him £300 three
years ago, but he believes it is now worth £750.

Bloomfield says: ‘Posters were how you got people into cinemas – so
shocking images, scantily clad women and bloodthirsty killers were
ideal.’

Bloomfield advises investors to buy the best they can afford and
invest a further £200 or so to get the posters professionally
deacidified, linen-backed and framed in ultra-
violet protecting glass. Like Dracula, they need to be out of direct sunlight.

Investors drawn to horror should not overlook books. The world of
the occult and spirits has been manifest in the printed word for
centuries.

One of the most valuable witch-related books is the 1487 Malleus
Maleficarum – Latin for The Hammer Of Witches – by Germans Heinrich
Kramer and Jacob Sprenger.
This witch-spotters’ handbook, of which few copies remain, was used by
inquisitors to persecute women suspected of witchcraft. A copy sold for
£78,000 at Sotheby’s in 2003.

Blair Cowl of book dealer Adrian Harrington in Kensington, west
London, says: ‘Black magic and witchcraft is a fascinating historic
area, attracting attention among book collectors. Rarity means prices
are rising.’